Much like their counterparts in developing western cities,
Harrison County businessmen acted as boosters for the county seat
of Clarksburg. They strove to bring improvements that would
increase population, land values, and opportunities for trade.
Clarksburg was not an upstart, or fast-growing city, as defined by
historian Daniel Boorstin in his classic study of American
development; it never experienced the rapid population growth
necessary to be considered a rival to other western
settlements.1 In fact, with a population of only 895 in
1860, it was not really a city but a fledgling town.2
Located in the north-central region of West Virginia and settled in
the late eighteenth century, Harrison County was an area of
subsistence agriculture, where 90 percent of the population resided
and worked on farms. A grist- and sawmill economy developed with
the early settlement of the county and provided services for
agricultural producers, and local entrepreneurs, through the
mid-nineteenth century. By 1840 the number of farms and amount of
grain produced led Harrison County residents to boast of having the
most mills of any county in western Virginia.3
Coarse-ground meal from local mills provided the link between the
county's production of corn and its chief export commodity-cattle.
Prominent farmers and businessmen, individuals deeply committed to
commercialism, owned many of the mills. Some expanded their
holdings to include small-scale manufacturing and retail
establishments, others gained skills as lawyers and surveyors which
allowed them to profit from participation in local land
speculation.

Building on the agricultural economy, this group of prominent
farmers, mill owners, and local businessmen emerged to bring the
county into contact with markets in eastern cities. These local
elites differed from the small family farmer in a number of ways.
Most were lawyers, surveyors, merchants who sold to the local
market, and landowners who typically held more than three hundred
acres. Clarksburg elites were proto-capitalists; they had the
desire and ambition to participate in manufacturing and in an
inter-regional market economy on a large scale but lacked the
individual financial resources to do so. The intersection of land
ownership, residence in the county seat, kinship ties, and the
ability to profit from limited capital investment characterized
those with elite status.4 Wealthy landowners, lawyers,
and local exchange merchants had a desire to reach larger markets
for their goods and services and became active in a campaign to
link Harrison County to commercial centers in the East, such as
Baltimore. The elites of Clarksburg embraced a booster ethos that
paralleled the actions of their counterparts farther west, and it
is in that context that they will be examined here.

The booster ethos American communities embraced in the
nineteenth century spoke to the desire for both economic growth and
social order.5 It offered a bond for the members of a
growing community and allowed for unity and collective action in
the city-building enterprise. Historian David Hamer notes that
boosting deserves to be considered as a serious method employed for
economic development in growing communities. According to Hamer,
boosters projected a broad vision of what cities and towns should
be like and collectively offered a "celebration of the potential of
urban development in new societies." Historian Don Doyle identifies
boosting as a means of cementing communities together and as a
"powerful adhesive in the making of the business
class."6

Frequently characterized by an extravagant optimism, boosters in
western cities, such as Chicago and Cincinnati, expressed the
belief that their towns were destined for greatness. As young towns
and cities emerged in the early to mid-nineteenth century, the
phenomena of boosterism and urban rivalry began in earnest. The
popular image of boosters as men who employed creative means, such
as highly exaggerated newspaper articles and advertisements, to
lure potential settlers to their new "city" cannot be denied. In
his study of the growth of Chicago, environmental historian William
Cronon notes that boosters believed "climate, soils, vegetation,
transportation routes, and other features of the landscape all
pointed toward key locations that nature had designated for urban
greatness." As was common in the nineteenth century, the boosters
of that town went so far as to suggest the location of the new
metropolis was assured by nature, even possibly ordained by
God.7

Yet boosterism involved much more than the distribution of
pamphlets, circulars, and newspapers. It was a phenomenon that took
on a unique role in frontier development and American westward
expansion. Boosterism combined personal gain and public good, the
"interfusing of public and private prosperity." The successful
booster was a businessman who sought to increase his personal
wealth but was also committed to community improvement. The booster
had absolute faith in his community and wanted to create a town
that would "attract" people. In the booster's mind the prospect for
personal profit was tied to the growth of his town and to any
activity that would "make it easier, cheaper, and pleasanter" for
people to join his community.8

To reconcile reality with the image projected, boosters sought
the attractions necessary to make their town viable in the eyes of
the settlers they hoped to attract; booster businessmen aspired to
build the towns they promoted. In addition to building their
businesses, boosters sought to emulate the conveniences of
long-established eastern cities and were concerned with the
cultural image their town projected. Most were serious and sincere
in the belief that their town had potential for
greatness.9 They were community makers and community
leaders, businessmen with a vested interest in the growth of their
town or city. Daniel Boorstin argued that "not to boost your city
showed a lack of community spirit and a lack of business
sense."10

The businessmen of Clarksburg shared many of the same concerns
that worried other western settlers. They wanted to profit
personally, but many were also concerned with building the cultural
image of their town. Evidence of their booster spirit can be found
early in the nineteenth century.

The goals of Clarksburg elites were to attract people by
building a respectable town and to increase profits for their
businesses. The acts of various Clarksburg businessmen demonstrate
that these individuals were involved in boosting the town and in
building the population and business interests of the area. John
George Jackson, who operated a mill complex, worked almost
single-handedly to improve river navigation in the 1820s so goods
produced at his complex could reach wider markets through
Pittsburgh to the north and Parkersburg to the west. Although he
would be involved in some community-building activities, Jackson's
enthusiasm for the Monongalia Navigation Company is best attributed
to a personal desire to increase profits for his business ventures
than a desire for community improvement. In fact, in the face of
complaints from local property owners, a Virginia Board of Public
Works investigation led to a reduction in the project's
capitalization once it was discovered that Jackson, not Clarksburg,
would be the primary beneficiary of navigation
improvements.11 Another local elite, Benjamin Wilson,
Jr., became the president of the unchartered Virginia Saline Bank,
which he and other elites hoped would provide the necessary
financing for building their town and their business interests.
Wilson, the primary local rival of Jackson, spent most of his
energy opposing any improvement project his challenger suggested.
The two bitterly contested who would donate the lot on which a new
county courthouse would be built.12 Some, such as
Jackson and Wilson, acted primarily for their own interests, but
others embraced the booster ethos and strove for community
improvement as well as personal profit.

Phineas Chapin, who tried his hand at a variety of business
ventures throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, was
an active spokesman for Clarksburg.13 His correspondence
suggests he believed nature provided Clarksburg with advantages
that made it especially well suited for settlement. In 1817 he
encouraged his brother to move to the new town:

I believe it is to be the most healthy part of the United
States. We are so elevated, so free from nearby swamps and stagnant
waters, that we get nothing but pure and wholesome air-and we
generally have good, pleasant weather-the Spring is early, the soil
is abundantly rich. We have not such society here to be sure as may
be found in New York City, Boston etc.-we cannot expect that you
know-the country is new-the materials are rough, but we are rapidly
progressing in the arts and science and especially in
refinement.14

In many ways, Chapin is representative of the Clarksburg elites
and the city booster. His actions clearly exemplify the community
builder who mingled the goals of personal and public prosperity.
Little is known of his origins, save that he came to Clarksburg
from Massachusetts in 1817 as an agent for the New England Land
Company which operated out of Randolph County.15 The new
businessman of the West was a community maker and community leader
whose "primary commodity was land and his secondary commodity was
transportation."16 Chapin was a natural city booster
whose involvement in Clarksburg affairs began soon after his
arrival. His agency for the land company allowed him to gain a
reasonable amount of property and, by 1819, he married the daughter
of John Sommerville, a prominent businessman and tavern owner. In
1823 he began publishing the weekly Clarksburg Intelligencer, which
he operated until 1826.17 In addition to his
business-building endeavors, he engaged in activities to enhance
the cultural image of Clarksburg.

Chapin and his family were members of the Presbyterian
congregation of Clarksburg. When the group experienced difficulty
in obtaining an ordained minister, Chapin waged an active campaign
to solve the problem. The only Presbyterian minister within one
hundred miles, Asa Brooks, came only occasionally. The
Presbyterians also faced problems in attempting to raise funds for
a meeting house so, throughout the 1820s, they shared the Methodist
meeting house, holding services on those occasional Sunday
afternoons Asa Brooks was in town. Solving the problem would allow
Chapin the satisfaction of providing the community with a more
permanent minister and would be of personal interest to him as a
member of the Presbyterian congregation. In early 1830 Chapin wrote
to Massachusetts, appealing for a "minister of the gospel to come
out and settle among us."18 He succeeded in getting four
members of the local congregation to pledge a total of four hundred
dollars as salary for a minister who would agree to come to
Clarksburg to preach and establish a school. In late January 1830,
however, Chapin's request was denied as no minister was willing to
travel to the backwoods of western Virginia, especially not to
perform the dual function of minister and teacher.19

By December 1830 a compromise was reached on the question of a
minister, and arrangements were made for Brooks to spend
three-quarters of his time in Harrison County. Chapin addressed the
Quarterly Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at
Clarksburg, proposing the Presbyterians be granted use of the
meeting house at "11:00 a.m. one half of the Sabbaths he [Brooks]
shall spend in town during the year and the other half of the
Sabbaths he shall occupy the house in the evenings or
afternoons."20 Because it would interrupt regular
services for the Methodists, the request was denied and the
Presbyterians were compelled to hold a subscription drive to build
a permanent sanctuary for their services. The church was built in
the mid-1830s; unfortunately, Brooks died in 1834, before its
completion. It was another three years before the Clarksburg
Presbyterians would have a permanent minister.21

In addition to his faith in the Presbyterian church, Chapin kept
his faith in the belief that Clarksburg was destined to be a great
city. Evidence of his conviction is offered through his repeated
willingness to risk debt by entering a variety of business
endeavors. As well as the newspaper business, Chapin operated a
stagecoach line when the Northwestern Turnpike was built in 1836
and established at least two retail partnerships in the 1830s.
Apparently Chapin had little business sense for he was in debt
frequently. Records indicate he failed in all his business
undertakings, with the exception of his land
holdings.22

Nevertheless, Chapin was an active community builder for
Clarksburg and Harrison County and later served as a delegate to an
education convention held at Clarksburg in 1841, where he showed
his community support by advocating the benefits of free public
schools.23 He was the first county clerk elected in
1851, after constitutional revisions of that year provided for
popular election of county officials. Chapin also served on a
variety of community projects and boards, including those planning
social events and balls which were held in the county
courthouse.24

In addition to touting natural advantages and building community
business interests, community boosting required a town to cultivate
an image that projected prosperity and success. Clarksburg
businessmen, such as Chapin, wanted their town to appear culturally
equal or superior to long-established towns in the East. The desire
of boosters to establish their town as a cultural center is another
recurring theme of western boosterism. In addition to churches,
these aspirations were manifested through the building of a variety
of libraries, opera houses, and educational institutions in many
western communities. The builders of western towns and cities were
concerned with the image their community projected to visitors and
potential settlers. The stereotype of the "frontier town" as rough
and underdeveloped was to be avoided.25

Schools were an integral component of the image Harrison County
residents wanted to project. The earliest settlers established "old
field schools," which were associated with churches or held in
abandoned log cabins. Students used primitive writing materials and
pens made from goose quills. Teachers were paid by subscription,
with tuition being $2.50 per student. Since most farmers had little
cash income, payment was often in the form of goods such as linsey,
linen, or grain. Children from farm families attended school
sporadically, when their labor could be spared.26

The county's early teachers were often ministers who performed
the dual task of tending to a congregation and teaching its youth.
Most were considered respected professionals and often served on
boards and influenced community affairs. Ezekiel Quillen, the first
permanent Presbyterian minister, operated a local school and was
involved in a variety of community projects. In an 1845 letter,
Quillen related that his school had "about 70 scholars in all, four
boarders and three teachers."27

The old field schools served the children of small family
farmers and rural residents, but no self-respecting town could be
complete without an institution of higher learning. In Harrison
County, a movement to gain such a reputation began before 1800 with
the establishment of the Randolph Academy, a subscription school
for children of the elites. Touted as the "William and Mary College
of the west," Harrison County's leading citizens served on the
Randolph Academy Board of Trustees. Later only elites living within
three miles of the academy were selected for that
service.28 Unlike many secondary schools in western
cities of the nineteenth century which were funded privately or had
a religious affiliation, the Randolph Academy was originally
designated to receive state support. Although subsequent problems
would forestall state funding, the school was to be supported, in
the manner of William and Mary College, by surveying fees from
surrounding counties and through enrollee
subscriptions.29 To prove that the school could provide
quality education, the trustees engaged George Towers, a graduate
of Oxford University in England, as instructor.30

Local boosters of the school circulated an advertisement
promoting its benefits when the first term was scheduled to begin
in 1795:

The Trustees of the Randolph Academy notify the public that
they have erected in the town in Clarksburg, Harrison County,
Virginia, a commodious building, in order to carry into effect the
laudable design of the Institution, and accordingly have employed
as a tutor in the said Academy the Rev'd George Towers, lately from
England, a gentleman of undoubted character and abilities, who was
engaged to teach the Latin and Greek Languages, the English
grammatically, Arithmetic and Geography. The price of tuition will
be, for the Latin and Greek, sixteen dollars, for Geography, six
dollars, for Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, five dollars per
annum, to be paid quarterly. Genteel boarding can be had in the
town or neighborhood on reasonable terms.31

Academy trustees were rather optimistic in their description of
the school, failing to note in the circular that the "commodious
building" was actually a log structure. The surveying fees
designated for the school went unreceived year after year, and the
facility was likely to fail unless abundant subscriptions were
received.32

Yet for the elites of Clarksburg, the Randolph Academy was a
visible testament to the status of their town as one that was
culturally equal to those in the East. Academy trustees worked
diligently to secure funding for the institution, and the minute
books record repeated attempts to convince the surveyors to
contribute the funds the state had allocated.33 The
academy continued operations even though its books showed an
uninterrupted deficit. In the 1820s a committee including Benjamin
Wilson, Jr. and John George Jackson was formed to prepare a
petition to the legislature for an endowment for the institution.
When that failed, the trustees tried direct appeals to the governor
and a motion to raise funds by way of a lottery. The struggle for
funding finally ended when the school was sold in June
1841.34 The effort to keep the school operating
demonstrated that the elites of Clarksburg believed the academy to
be an important embodiment of the community's status as a cultural
center in the region.

The construction of public buildings was another image-boosting
enterprise the elites of Clarksburg practiced. The first
courthouse, constructed in 1787, was little more than a log
cabin.35 When a new structure was considered in the
1810s, its location and appearance were uppermost in the minds of
Clarksburg businessmen, who went so far as to petition the Virginia
legislature for an injunction when a faction of elites wanted the
new courthouse built outside the main part of town. John George
Jackson was so concerned with the location and appearance of the
new building that he offered the county court a choice of land he
owned in the town, as well as a donation of five hundred dollars to
ensure the building was constructed of brick or stone.36
When completed on the site Jackson preferred, the new courthouse
projected the image local boosters desired; it was an impressive
two-story brick building, thirty to thirty-five feet wide, with a
graceful cupola on the front.37

If visitors had a negative experience in a new town, their
writings or discussions could tarnish the developing town's
reputation. A visitor wrote to the Clarksburg newspaper editor in
1819 of a horrid experience while attending a funeral in the
town:

I wonder why the citizens of Clarksburg who are esteemed as a
liberal and intelligent people have not a place to bury their dead,
secured by a fence from the intrusion of hogs and cattle. I
attended a funeral not long ago and to my utter astonishment when
the time arrived for the departure of the corps [sic] to its place
of destination there was no Bier on which the coffin could be
placed-the consequence was that a wagon was substituted. When this
necessary convenience might be procured for a trifling sum of money
I think the citizens of the town are highly culpable for not having
one made.38

Elites responded to this criticism within two months. The county
court passed an ordinance prohibiting hogs from running at large
and ordered the enclosure of existing cemetery
plots.39

Businessmen not only had to be concerned with building their
town but, as fires were frequent in new areas, they often had to
deal with rebuilding the town and its image. When disaster struck,
the ability of a town to recover rapidly and continue its
advancement was a sign of its natural resilience. In cities like
Chicago, which was nearly destroyed by the Great Fire in 1871,
boosters used the opportunity to portray the city as "great in its
ruins," to be compared with ancient Carthage in its recovery from
disaster.40 When fire destroyed most of downtown
Clarksburg in May 1851, elites responded in a like-minded fashion.
Newspaper editorials in rival towns, such as Morgantown and
Wheeling, predicted that Clarksburg would never recover. But the
elites of the town set about rapid reconstruction of the business
district.41 Less than a year later, William Cooper, the
newspaper editor, publicized their efforts:

If any one [sic] doubts the enterprise of the citizens of
Clarksburg, he will be convinced of his error, at once, by a visit
to our town at the present time. On the site of the fire last
spring, he would find two fine brick fire-proof buildings, filled
with occupants, all driving a thriving business. There are, also,
several other buildings in contemplation, the foundation of some of
which is already laid. The scene of the late fire is now that of
workmen busily employed. Within the coming year Clarksburg will
present an appearance much improved over that of the past. Without
a single exception, those who were burnt out have resumed
business.42

Clarksburg elites refused to allow a fire to destroy the image
of their town, but its status faced a more serious threat from the
advances of technology and the coming of the railroad in the 1850s.
Transportation improvements, particularly railroads, threatened to
change the relationship of Clarksburg to the surrounding
countryside. Until the 1850s Clarksburg was the undisputed trade
center in Harrison County. This status can be understood by
envisioning a central place theory, similar to that used by today's
geographers, to understand the complicated relationship between
towns and their hinterlands. In his study of Chicago, William
Cronon describes the city as the center of a set of concentric
circles, with bands of activity that widen as the physical areas
they represent move farther from the city. The point of the
exercise is to map the trade areas that are linked to the city,
which becomes the central trading station for the
region.43 Western towns were often concerned with being
the center of action and trade. In western Virginia, the county
seat was the center of economic, as well as social and political,
activity.44 County seats served as marketplaces for
their farming regions, and as population grew in rural areas, so
did the mercantile and manufacturing activities in the
town.45

The earliest settlers of Harrison County established Clarksburg
as the county seat, but the task of maintaining the central trading
place status of the town fell to the elites. Ensuring that their
town would continue to grow and prosper was a goal that united the
businessmen. Historian Don Doyle notes that "at a time when most
businesses still took the form of small family firms and
partnerships, the city-building enterprise brought businessmen
together in a large-scale enterprise."46 The internal
improvements such as river navigation, better roads, and a railroad
link were city-building enterprises. Elites united behind a project
to improve navigation on the West Fork and Monongahela rivers in
the 1820s, with at least six Clarksburg businessmen serving on the
company's board.47 When that failed, they turned toward
road construction. Their actions helped steer the route of the
Northwestern Turnpike through the center of Clarksburg in 1836 and
gave the town the advantage of being a central stopping place
between Winchester and Parkersburg, the respective terminal points
of the road.48 This made Clarksburg a trading station
for the region as well as the county.

In the late 1820s the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad
began to consider a western route to connect its namesake city with
the Ohio River, which naturally led businessmen in the towns and
cities of transmontane Virginia to begin actively promoting the
advantages of their communities. The elites of Clarksburg were no
exception and joined boosters in Winchester, Parkersburg, and
Wheeling in their quest for the rail line. At the company's offices
in Baltimore, "letters poured in promoting the advantages of their
locality for a railroad route."49 The Virginia General
Assembly passed the act to incorporate the B&O line through
Virginia on March 8, 1827, and designated that the road could not
strike the Ohio River south of Parkersburg.50

Construction of the railroad from the east was slow and did not
reach western Virginia until the early 1840s, after the
Northwestern Turnpike made Clarksburg a central trading stop.
Businessmen in both Clarksburg and Parkersburg felt certain the
B&O would follow the same route. The success of railroads
elsewhere confirmed the improvement could bring many changes to a
fledgling town.51 Because of the railroad's ability to
increase property values and ensure growth, the elites of
Clarksburg actively pursued the B&O and firmly believed that
the best route was through the town.52

The Clarksburg-Parkersburg route received wide support
throughout the region and in Baltimore. Indeed, B&O engineer
Benjamin Latrobe surveyed several routes for a western terminus
between Wheeling and Parkersburg and found that the Parkersburg
terminus by way of Clarksburg would be the most advantageous and
direct route.53 Louis McLane, president of the railroad,
also preferred the Parkersburg route; unfortunately, plans were
halted when a rivalry emerged between Parkersburg and Wheeling,
where legislators and a faction of B&O officials favored a more
northerly terminus. A common cause of urban rivalry in growing
towns, the dispute over the railroad caused bitter feelings between
interests that allied with one side or the other.54
Refusing to back down, the Clarksburg elites organized a local
convention to promote the Parkersburg terminus in the fall of 1845.
Attended by delegates from eleven north-central counties, the
action had the support of the B&O, which sent Latrobe as the
company's representative.55

The influence of the Wheeling legislators proved too forceful
for the north-central boosters, who lost their chance for the rail
line when the General Assembly passed the B&O law of 1845.
Extending the contract of the railroad to allow additional time for
construction, the act prohibited the B&O from crossing the Ohio
River south of Wheeling. Clarksburg elites and their counterparts
in Parkersburg lost the bid for the railroad, and the new line
passed through the town of Grafton in Taylor County, fifteen miles
east of Clarksburg.56 But area elites were not willing
to accept defeat and, before the B&O was completed, they sought
a second chance to save the central place status of Clarksburg.

Before the coming of the railroad, trade goods passed through
Clarksburg from points east and west, but the B&O terminal at
Grafton jeopardized the town's status. The elites understood that
commerce in their town was directly related to trade with
surrounding rural areas and a town pushed off the route commonly
used by travelers, such as happened when the B&O circumvented
Clarksburg, could pass into oblivion within a few
years.57 They again allied with promoters in Parkersburg
and petitioned for a connecting rail line that would keep the town
on the main trade route.58 The idea was sound-across the
Ohio River from Parkersburg was to be the terminus of the Marietta
and Cincinnati Railroad, already under construction. This proposed
railroad spur would therefore link the B&O at Grafton to the
Marietta and Cincinnati in Ohio.59

When the legislature answered the petition by granting a charter
for the Northwestern Virginia Railroad in 1851, a subscription
campaign was mounted throughout the region. Under the supervision
of Virginia governor and Harrison County resident Joseph Johnson,
Clarksburg lawyers Gideon Camden, Cyrus Vance, Burton Despard, and
Jonathan M. Bennett were authorized to receive subscriptions for up
to six hundred shares of stock in the company at fifty dollars per
share.60 Parkersburg residents subscribed heavily to the
project, but the rural residents of Harrison County seemed
indifferent. Local elites, including William Cooper, editor of the
weekly Cooper's Clarksburg Register, urged farmers to support the
railroad. Editorials in his paper touted the venture as a great
benefit to the average resident. He also advised farmers to deal
fairly with the company with regard to selling land along the
railroad's route.61 These efforts failed to open the
pocketbooks of rural Harrison County residents, and they did not
subscribe to railroad stock in the numbers needed to guarantee
construction. Residents were even offered the option of purchasing
shares in the company on an installment plan, requiring an initial
investment of only three dollars.62

Cooper seemed baffled that county residents failed to support
the construction of the railroad, but they may not have been in a
position to purchase the stock. With increased agricultural
production after the opening of the Northwestern Turnpike, rural
residents were clearly enjoying participation in market commerce
but not necessarily on a cash basis. Merchants in the county
accepted farm produce and home manufactures in exchange for eastern
store goods throughout the 1850s. Although other county merchants
may have continued to operate on a barter system, Clarksburg
merchants appear to have switched to a "cash only" form of trade by
the 1860s, after the construction of the railroad.63

Stock subscriptions also failed to sell in the town of
Clarksburg. Two months after sales began, the only shares sold were
to Burton Despard, the commissioner who had opened the subscription
books.64 Instead of a dearth of cash flow, which was not
apparent in the town, the problem of the railroad's location may
have led elites to adopt a "wait and see" attitude. At least three
routes were considered as locations for the Northwestern Virginia
Railroad. One would pass through the town of Weston in Lewis
County; another would cross Simpson Creek near Bridgeport, four
miles outside of Clarksburg; and a third would pass through
Clarksburg. Only the latter route was acceptable to the elites of
Clarksburg.65

This concern for the location of the railroad was evident in the
correspondence of local elites. Caleb Boggess, a Clarksburg lawyer,
indicated to Weston House of Delegates member Jonathan M. Bennett
in July 1851, "I saw some time past three of the subordinate
examiners of the B&O R. Company and they all seem of the
opinion the N. W. R. Road would go through Weston." In early 1852
Boggess was concerned that the Simpson Creek route would
prevail.66 By the time the Clarksburg route was finally
designated in late 1852 and construction scheduled to begin, the
venture was severely underfunded.67

For a time it seemed the Northwestern Virginia Railroad could
not be constructed as a private venture and, given eastern
Virginia's continued indifference to the financing of western
internal improvements, it was unlikely the railroad could expect
much in the way of state monies. Local elites along the route were
determined to secure the necessary financing to build the railroad.
Because Baltimore was a main trading partner of the region and the
B&O would benefit from an east-to-west connection with the Ohio
River terminus of the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, elites
turned their attention toward gaining the backing of Baltimore
residents and the B&O.

Local elites waged an ardent campaign to gain the support of
Thomas Swann, who was appointed president of the B&O in 1848,
and the financial backing of Baltimore merchants.68
Jonathan M. Bennett was a key figure in winning over the initially
reluctant Swann.69 Although the Northwestern Virginia
Railroad was not originally part of the B&O, Swann eventually
boosted the project.70 He could not offer the financial
backing of the B&O, but Swann linked local elites with
Baltimore agents who were willing to promote a subscription drive
in that area. He even offered to come to Clarksburg to help
organize the company.71

The agent Swann recommended, Henry S. Garrett, proved an able
man for the task of obtaining Baltimore subscriptions. He managed
to overcome "not a few obstacles to Embarrass and defer the
obtaining of so much money here, to be Expended in another
Commonweath [sic] and in some measure beyond the management, or
control of those who contribute it."72 Indeed,
subscriptions were received in such amounts that the city of
Baltimore floated a bond of $1.5 million for the project, and the
B&O backed a bond in the same amount. The cost for construction
of the railroad was estimated at $3.5 million, and the charter
issued by Virginia required its completion within two years. When
the road was completed in May 1857, it passed into the management
of the B&O.73

Once the Clarksburg route for the Northwestern Virginia Railroad
was guaranteed, the town's elites rallied behind the line's
construction. They busied themselves selling their land holdings
along the line to the new company. The elites were finally assured
that Clarksburg would maintain its central trading place status in
the region.74

Whether the elites of Clarksburg were building a school,
establishing a church, or working to secure their town's status,
the actions born of their booster spirit helped to change the lives
of many Harrison County residents. Their desire for internal
improvements shaped the landscape of the area and established
Clarksburg as a central trading center for the region. Even
withholding their support for the Northwestern Virginia Railroad
until Clarksburg was assured of a rail terminal demonstrated their
commitment to the growth of the community. The booster of the town,
like his counterpart in the Midwest, was, in the words of Daniel
Boorstin, the "organizer, the persuader, the discoverer of
opportunities, the projector, the risk-taker, and the man able to
attach himself quickly and profitably to some group until its
promise was tested."75

2. Bureau of the Census, Statistics of the United States in
1860, Eighth Census (Washington, DC: GPO, 1866), 518.

3. Bureau of the Census, Statistics of the United States of
America, Sixth Census (Washington, DC: GPO, 1842), 236-37.

4. Mary Beth Pudup, "The Boundaries of Class in Preindustrial
Appalachia," Journal of Historical Geography 15(1989):
141-46; and John A. Williams, "Class, Section, and Culture in
Nineteenth-Century West Virginia Politics," in Appalachia in the
Making: The Mountain South in the Nineteenth Century , eds.
Mary Beth Pudup, Dwight B. Billings, and Altina Waller (Chapel
Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1995), 218.

5. Sally F. Griffith, "'Order, Discipline, and a few Cannon':
Benjamin Franklin, the Association, and the Rhetoric and Practice
of Boosterism," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and
Biography 116(1992): 132.

11. Stephen W. Brown, Voice of the New West: John G. Jackson,
His Life and Times (Macon, GA: Mercer Univ. Press, 1985),
190-93.

12. Ibid., 38-39.

13. Dorothy Davis, History of Harrison County
(Clarksburg: American Association of Univ. Women, 1970), 832.

14. Phineas Chapin to his brother, 15 May 1817, John J. Davis
Papers, West Virginia and Regional History Collection, West
Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, WV, hereafter referred
to as Davis Papers. All references to the West Virginia and
Regional History Collection are hereafter WVRHC.

15. Davis, History , 284.

16. Boorstin, The Americans , 117.

17. Davis, History , 284, 832. Unfortunately, there are
no extant issues of Chapin's newspaper.

18. Chapin to S. Woods, 2 January 1830, Davis Papers.

19. S. Woods to Chapin, 16 January 1830, ibid.

20. Chapin to the Quarterly Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, 6 December 1830, ibid.

34. Ibid., 23 December 1821, 3 June 1822, 11 February
1828, and 8 June 1841.

35. Davis, History , 113.

36. Haymond, History of Harrison County , 237-38.

37. Davis, History , 166.

38. Independent Virginian (Clarksburg, Virginia), 18
August 1819.

39. Ibid., 20 October 1819.

40. Hamer, New Towns , 130.

41. Cooper's Clarksburg Register , 12 November 1851.

42. Ibid., 17 December 1851.

43. Cronon, Nature's Metropolis , 48-50.

44. Hamer, New Towns , 137.

45. Cronon, Nature's Metropolis , 40; and Hamer, New
Towns , 137.

46. Doyle, New Men, New Cities, New South , 137.

47. John George Jackson was president of the company, Benjamin
Wilson, Jr. and local lawyers James Pindall, William Martin, Lemuel
E. Davisson, and Edwin S. Duncan served as directors. See Davis,
John George Jackson, 390.